Tuesday, August 14, 2018

- Somaliland – a country in the horn of Africa – has become a hotspot
in oil and gas exploration activities in East Africa. Somaliland’s
exciting geological and geopolitical significance has led international
oil and gas companies to snap up onshore and offshore exploration
licenses making it the new frontier in oil and gas exploration in the
region.

TGS–NOPEC Geophysical Company has been at the forefront of oil and
gas exploration activities, from the offshore acquisition of,
approximately, 5,100 km of 2-D seismic, gravity, and magnetic data, to
the onshore acquisition of 34,000 kilometers of high-resolution
aeromagnetic data covering all Somaliland’s oil basins. The processing
and the interpretation of TGS data has been completed which provided the
structural elements of the area and will cause the subsequent
development of leads and plays.

Thursday, August 9, 2018

- Penketh and Cuerdley councillor Allin Dirir sadly died on July 22 following a stroke. The ‘much loved’ husband, dad and granddad leaves behind his wife Cllr
Linda Dirir, son Adam, and daughters Leila, Sareda and Sophia.

Allin’s
early political life started when he was 16 after he was voted as the
youngest leader of a political party in his home country of Somaliland.
After studying at Alexandria University in Egypt and becoming fluent
in several languages, he travelled to the UK to take up a place at
Lancaster University.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

- Today most of the South Somalia is ruled by IGAD, AU, UN, the
powerless government of Somalia controls the Capital City of Mogadishu
by less than 10% of the city. The International community
suggested that Somaliland government should negotiate with the shaky and
powerless government in Mogadishu over its independence.

The
ongoing Talks between Somaliland and the powerless government of
Mogadishu had finally collapsed after Somalia's inclusion of officials
of Somaliland nationality in its delegation. Both sides agreed before
that it would not be included representatives who originated from
Somaliland, but Mogadishu deliberately included its delegation people
who Somalilanders believe that they are mercenaries and are criminals
from their own country.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

- The Berbera Tripartite Concession
Agreement which Somaliland entered with the DP World of the United Arab
Emirates and the Ethiopian Government is hailed by many Horn of Africa
international analysts as a game changer: for Ethiopia as a major
breakthrough in securing a stake to the strategic Berbera Port; for
Somaliland in opening its first major inlet to the global economy and in
creating a significant potential to break the political deadlock for
its quest for international recognition, and for the Emirates, it is a
major achievement in its drive to project as a regional power in the
Horn of Africa & Middle East geopolitical overlap. Internally in
Somaliland, the deal attracted a lot of controversy in the beginning,
mainly due to the lack of transparency in its incubation period, and
perhaps because the financial figure mentioned in the deal (US$ 442
million), was below the expectation of the Somaliland people.

Friday, August 3, 2018

- When I told a friend recently that I was going to Hargeisa, he
looked at me in a way that told me immediately that he had no clue what I
was talking about. He eventually asked: “Where is that?”

Many
asked me this same question in 2014 when I first went to Hargeisa.

So
in many ways, here in East Africa, as elsewhere in the world, I suppose,
Hargeisa remains an unknown quantity nearly 30 years since Somaliland,
the country whose capital city it is, broke away from the rest of
Somalia and declared itself independent.

- DP World has a number of investments in East
Africa, including one in Berbera, Somaliland. The region's
self-proclaimed independence remains unrecognized by any country or
international organization.

However, Bin Sulayem told
CNBC that "he had no issue in investing with the autonomous government
in Somaliland and there was no need to go through the official Somali
government.

"The argument between
Somaliland and Somalia clearly recognizes that the economic activity in
the region belongs to Somaliland. What we have done is within the law."

Friday, July 27, 2018

- The soporific seaside town of Berbera is slowly changing as it takes
on a major role on the Red Sea shipping route, allowing breakaway
Somaliland to dream of prosperity and even recognition.

At the Berbera port, dozens of containers are stacked on a
sun-scorched platform and a few cranes creakily transfer sacks of
sorghum and other goods from a rusting cargo ship. The facilities are far from modern, but Somaliland hopes its position
on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes will turn the state into a
job-creating dynamo — and encourage international recognition 27-years
after it split from Somalia.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

- Aged just 16, Abdishakur Mohamed confidently presented his latest
work to the Hargeisa book fair, an event that has transformed
Somaliland's literary scene over the past decade. Abdishakur spent four years writing "Ab-ka haleel" ("In the footsteps
of our ancestors"), intended as a rebuttal of friends who he says were
not "embracing their culture".

"Instead they see it as unimportant, and their Somali identity is in danger," he told AFP.

At the first annual event in 2008, organisers only exhibited a
handful of books borrowed from friends and attracted just 200 visitors.

Friday, July 20, 2018

- When you are in Somaliland, there is never any question that you are in a
real country. After all, the place has all the trappings of
countryhood. When I arrived at the airport, a customs officer in a
Somaliland uniform checked my Somaliland visa, issued by the Somaliland
consulate in Washington DC. At the airport, there was a Somaliland flag.
During my visit, I paid Somaliland shillings to drivers of cabs with
Somaliland plates who took me to the offices of ministers of the Somaliland government.

But, according to the US Department of State, the United Nations,
the African Union and every other government on Earth, I was not in
Somaliland, a poor but stable and mostly functional country on the Horn
of Africa. I was in Somalia.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

- The Africa Watch report, “A Government at War with Its Own People” estimated that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 people were killed between May
of 1988 and the beginning of 1990.[xv] While it is unlikely that all of these deaths are civilian, with SNM membership estimated at only 10,000[xvi],
it is clear that many civilians were killed, the large majority of
which were Isaak. Deaths were inflicted through indiscriminate
government bombing of the towns of Hargeisa and Burao. Civilians fleeing
from fighting were strafed by government planes.

Although the largest spike in killings is in May and August of 1988,
the government’s Somali National Army (SNA) continued to target the
Isaak community over many months through round-ups and mass executions
of Isaak civilians at the town level.

- Every month, the
Somaliland Ministry of Education, based in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s
capital, surveys tens of thousands of children and their parents on
their mobile phones to monitor conditions in schools around the region.
The parents’ and pupils’ feedback is collected in monthly reports called
“community scorecards” that are shared with local officials and
discussed at regular meetings with parents, administrators and others.

“Mobile phones are vital here. They are everything to us,” said Fatma
Farah, 32, a mother of four who lives in Borama, a city on the
Ethiopian border about 70 miles west of Hargeisa where around 200
families regularly use the service. Three of Fatma’s children are in
primary school.

Friday, July 13, 2018

– The Global Partnership for
Education’s Board of Directors approved a grant of US$7.68 million to
support Somaliland’s efforts to extend quality education to more of its
children.

The three-year grant will support Somaliland’s Education Sector
Strategic Plan 2018-2021 which aims to increase the enrollment of girls
and boys from diverse and under-educated communities in primary and
secondary schools, improve the quality of schooling through teacher
skill training and better learning materials, and establish an effective
system to gather and analyze education data to measure progress.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

- Somaliland: Although it’s not internationally recognized by
the UN, it has protected and delimited land borders, its own military,
its own president, its own currency, its own police. And it also proudly
holds democratic elections since 1991. Basically, this country
“that doesn’t exist” runs better than 2/3 of other African countries.
This is a national pride and an example to the World. But even so, the
United Nations (UN) doesn’t recognize it as a sovereign state. Somaliland
borders Ethiopia, Djibouti and another region of Somalia called Land of
Punt, or Puntland, famous for having over 400 people kidnapped and held
captive by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Having read this, you should now really want to travel to Somaliland, right? But don’t worry, I spent a week there. Everything was very quiet, no problems. I really loved it and wish to go back.

Friday, July 6, 2018

HARGEISA, Somaliland—Hyperinflation and economic isolation have
pushed this poor, breakaway republic closer to a virtual milestone than
most other countries in the world: a cashless economy.

Mobile-money
services have taken off over the past decade in Africa; 1 in 10 adults
across the continent—about 100 million people—use them. In Kenya,
Vodacom Group Ltd.’s
VOD -2.12%
groundbreaking service M-Pesa, broadly considered the first major
and most successful mobile-money technology platform, counts 26 million
users, roughly half the population. More than half of the world’s 282
mobile-money platforms are in sub-Saharan Africa, research by McKinsey
& Co. shows.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

- On September 3 1952,
dad-of-three Mahmood Hussein Mattan was taken from his cell at Cardiff
prison and executed for a murder he did not commit. He was the last person to ever be hanged in Cardiff and the final innocent person to be hanged in Wales.

Born in Somalia in 1923, Mahmood Mattan was a sailor and his job ended up taking him to Wales. That was when he met Laura Williams from the Rhondda Valley.

The couple married just three months after meeting. The Somali seaman upset many people in the 1950s community of Butetown by marrying a Welsh woman.

- Donald Trump has been 'banned' from the
city of Sheffield by its new mayor - just ten days ahead of the US
president's visit to the UK. Magid Magid labelled Trump a 'wasteman' and said there was no space for him to visit the city. Instead,
the day of Trump's arrival on July 13 should be celebrated as Mexico
Solidarity Day, Mr Magid said, as he wore a 'Trump is a Wasteman'
t-shirt, teamed with green Doctor Martin boots.

Green
Party councillor Magid Magid made the announcement on Twitter, citing
Mr Trump's 'Muslim ban', the detention of children at the border, and
withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement as reasons.

Monday, July 2, 2018

"the ultimate objective for the past 27
years of the sparsely populated nation of four million people has been
getting international recognition and Hemsi says it will remain so until
they acquire it."

- The
Ambassador of Somaliland in Uganda, Hemse Abdul said it’s high time,
that the international community recognised Somaliland as an independent
state to allow them deal with their problems effectively.

“We need to strongly unite for the
welfare of our nation, peaceful coexistence and defence in a united
voice as one wherever we are in the world,” Abdul said.

- Dubai, July 2 (BNA): A range of food donation drives were organised
during this year’s Holy Month of Ramadan by global trade enabler, Dubai
Ports (DP World) across its network to benefit more than 120,000 people
in the UAE, Senegal, Indonesia, Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Mozambique and
Republic of Somaliland.

These included the distribution of 34 tonnes of dates to schools and
businesses in Djibouti and the Republic of Somaliland provided by the
Dar Al Ber Society in Dubai; a traditional iftar or Ramadan
fast-breaking meal for 200 orphans and the distribution of 700 food
packs every day for three weeks in Surabaya, Indonesia; delivery of food
to over 6,000 underprivileged children at eight schools in Senegal; the
distribution of food parcels to remote areas of Djazair, Algeria; the
distribution of 1,000 bags of groceries to the underprivileged in
Sokhna, Egypt; and a food donation drive for a home for the elderly in
Maputo, Mozambique.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

- Imagine Agaro or Jimma town bombarded and destroyed by planes
belonging to the Ethiopian Army whose whole and sole responsibility was
to protect, not to bomb its people. What if MIG17 were to take off from
the airport to bomb the town itself? What if you were in your mother’s
womb and she could not even walk the distance between Jimma and
Sudan-Ethiopia border to look for shelter and safety and to keep you
survive inside her womb? Just visualize a situation where your mother
could not even think that you would ever survive, because of the
planes’ shelling and soldiers slaughtering their fellow citizens in
every corner of the Agaro streets? How would you feel if your mother’s
efforts and patience helped you being born in a refugee camp in Sudan
and becoming a Sudanese citizen?